28 June, 2007

some pictures

26 June, 2007

weather tricks

Yesterday I needed a breather so I went up on the top deck. It's got a number (like 05 or something) but I don't know it. It's the one that's large and flat and outside at the same level as the bridge. We have an open bridge here and can go up there whenever which rules because it's got a good view. I'd rather be outside though, most of the time. I stood up there and looked out. We've been out in the real water for a day and half now. Rolling swells and no sign of land. Off the starboard side (the right, the east) the sky grew darker to the distance and the horizon was obscured by rainshadow. The weather did a knockout thing: it created the most perfect and complete rainbow I've ever seen. It grew out of the sea in the middle distance, which means I could see where it hit the water and it even sort of reflected down into it for a bit. Then it made a complete arch -- a full half circle and came down into the water on the other side. Again, in the middle distance. It was bright as fuck and even slightly doubled: mirrored like, with a faint echo of itself back and to the left. I stood up there looking at it till it went away, like 45 minutes or so.

Today I went up there and just stared off over the sea for a while. A group of sea birds were swooping back and forth and all around the ship. Some gulls I think, some petrels and a couple albatrosses (albatross? albatri? albatrothe?) sailing and gliding over the waves. They just go and go and go and never have to flap. They're supposed to be good luck, unless you shoot one, which I didn't. There's something captivating and beautiful to me about an expanse of water as far as can be seen in every direction. Lonely and sad but also full and present and important. We're in port tomorrow and we're supposed to be completely in the drydock by tomorrow night around 8. I guess it's like this huge sort of box that the boat goes into and then they close a gate behind the boat and suck all the water out. Then it settles down on blocks and they get to work. We get to run around town too if we want when we're off. That's good cuz I was a little worried we'd be stuck on the ship. It's weird being on a ship. It's like a house with less decoration and more noise that moves around on its own. I haven't been sleeping very well the last couple of nights. Sometimes lying in my bunk it's like being on a long distance train journey except the motion is less jerky. The sway can be likened to the feeling of when an airplane banks. Your ears even pop sometimes (well, mine do).

24 June, 2007

afloat

It's day three on board the Nathaniel B. Palmer. The sick I got a week or so back still has some of its greazy clutches in my nose & lungs. I'm slowing hacking it out. Life on board is short of high adventure, but it's got enough interesting to make it worthwhile. It's easy sometimes down in the spot where we work to forget it's a ship. It's not like a dungeon, but it is somehow like an office. More like a lab, maybe. Sometimes the world tilts a bit though and then you remember. Or you can walk upstairs and go out on the weather deck (there's like 7 or 8 decks, it's a pretty tall ship). Outside is cold and often wet, but the passing scenery is stunning. Very fjordy around here. Incredible wash of color from white topped peaks through dark bare rock through exquisite verdant wooded bottom parts into the dark grey of the sea. I saw a whale spout today while I was out on the deck but when I ran up to the bridge to grab some binocs I wasn't able to find it again. And then no one believed that I had seen one. Nothing but a whale makes that kind of water spout that I know of though. Bill saw the spout too but the poor bastard (whale not Bill) must have either drowned or swam _really_ far away cuz we never saw him spout again. Work is slow right now and it's hard because I'm new. I'm still familiarizing myself with everything and I feel like I have to constantly be a burden on Bill & Jen by always asking "what do I do now?" It's hard not knowing what sort of stuff is supposed to get done. But I've got a couple things I've started on and they've kept me busy most of today. My room is small. Like, really small. But that's fine, because it's mine. I don't have any stuff to put in it anyway. It's got two tiny bunks with low ceilings with curtains that draw across them. They make a wonderful tiny cozy cubby to crawl into. There's litte chance two would fit in one of them. I don't know what couples do here. Or even if couples come here. The Captain's got his wife here (a strange pair, subject of much quiet whispering), but then that's the Captain. He's probably got a king sized bed. I get up around 7 now, go downstairs for breakfast (food is what you'd expect: bland, tan, fried for the most part), after brek, just down the hall is work. Lunch is around 11:30. Dinner is around 5:30. Work is done sometime after that. We're free to wander up the to deck during the day though. I haven't felt whipped or neck-breathed-down or chained to my chair, which has been nice. Today we passed a spot called the English Narrows. They weren't kidding with the name. Twisty passage through even more dramatic fjords than before. All tiny islands spotting the way. Lighthouses on treacherous outcroppings. We passed one before that had a small shrine on it (a virgin mary of some sort, I imagine. Our Lady of the Don't Crash On The Rocks and Die or some such thing). The custom is to throw money at it. I threw a 100 peso coin someone handed me. Bill only got 10 pesos. Will my luck be better? Remains to be seen. Cap'n tells us we're turning into open water in a bit: expect 30+ foot swell. So clean up our shit and tie down stuff that'll rattle about. (By rattle I mean come crashing down off the wall or table or whatever and break either itself, other stuff, or other people).